Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Korn Ferry third quarter fiscal year 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. We have also made available in the investor relations section of our website at kornferry.com a copy of the financial presentation that we will be reviewing with you today. Before I turn the call over to our host, Mr. Gary Burnison, let me first read a cautionary statement to investors. Certain statements made in the call today, such as those relating to future performance, plans, and goals, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Actual results in future periods may differ materially from those currently expected or desired because of a number of risks and uncertainties which are beyond the company's control. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties can be found in the release relating to this presentation and in the periodic and other reports filed by the company with the SEC, including the company's annual report for fiscal year 2025 and in the company's soon-to-be-filed quarterly report for the quarter ended January 31st, 2026. Some of the comments today may reference non-GAAP financial measures such as constant currency amounts, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA.
Additional information concerning these measures, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, is contained in the financial presentation and earnings release relating to this call, both of which are posted in the investor relations section of the company's website at www.kornferry.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Burnison. Please go ahead, Mr. Burnison.
Okay. Thank you, Regina, and thank you everybody for joining us. Our outstanding performance during the quarter reflects the ongoing evolution of our firm from One Korn Ferry to We Are Korn Ferry. Fundamentally, our purpose is to enable people and organizations to be more than. You know, as I reflect on all the recent conversations surrounding AI and disintermediation, it strikes me that the question isn't simply will AI take away jobs? The fact is there won't be enough workers. The prism we need to look through is of a stark imbalance in labor supply. While there may be fewer jobs compared to the last couple decades, there'll also be a lot less people in the labor force. Let's be clear on what this means. It's not simply that AI will take away your jobs.
It's that those not embracing technology and AI will be left out. Today, the world is enveloped by unprecedented levels of change. Ripple effects from the pandemic, aging demographics, and technological advancement from something out of Star Wars, all of which is converging to exert greater impact on the way people live, work, and consume. For example, birth rates in the U.S. have been falling since the late 1960s. They've essentially been cut by more than half in each year. 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day. That's four million a year for the next several years. Over the next 10 years, labor force participation is forecasted to decline further. Today, it's already lower than pre-COVID levels. As the labor force gets smaller, technology or immigration will need to fill the gap between supply and demand to maintain economic growth.
AI will absolutely play a critical role. At Korn Ferry, we're at the forefront of working directly with global decision-makers who are grappling with these issues as they seek answers to creating and sustaining a high-performing workforce. The outliers of achievement and performance are going to be more in demand, not less in demand. The need for highly skilled, agile talent will only increase. It'll be more critical than ever to identify the 20% doing the 80%. Companies must identify, hire, develop, and retain the scarce, experienced professionals needed to lead this transformation, which invariably means doing more with less. When we look at our own business and our clients, it supports this macroeconomic thesis. Internally, we have become far more efficient and productive. Over the last three years, revenue is up and costs are down.
Our revenue per head count has increased by almost a third. As a result, we are more profitable and we've grown our margins by more than 300 basis points. We're continuing to drive a major transformation. From One Korn Ferry to We Are Korn Ferry. What does it mean? Well, it means that we're not five businesses. We're one business with five solutions and 9,000 colleagues, all with a unified mindset. It begins with client centricity, deepening our solutions with our existing clients to unlock growth. We've got more than 10,000 clients around the world, but 4,500 of those represent 90% of our revenue. When I look at that set of clients, our penetration is only one and a half or two solutions per client for two-thirds of the 4,500 clients.
That means there's a lot of runway to deepen the relationship. With We Are Korn Ferry, we are taking a top-down and bottom-up systematic process to tap this growth opportunity. Our market accounts again outperform the portfolio, up 9%, contributing 40% of our overall total revenue. Our cross-business referrals are now at a near high of 27% of our business. At the top of the house, our work has never been more impactful. Recently, a well-known TV broadcast highlighted seven major CEO transitions over the last few months, and we were involved in six of them. Further reflecting our client centricity, we've won several significant transformation engagements across the globe. A major aerospace and defense company is one of our first end-to-end Talent Suite customers, utilizing our proprietary data to make better talent decisions across 40,000 plus employees.
This is a multi-year Talent Suite engagement. For me, Talent Suite isn't a product. It's Moneyball for business based on data beyond compare. It gives clients decades of insight of what separates great from good. It powers the entire firm. At one of the top financial institutions in the world, with nearly 100,000 employees, we're supporting a new enterprise-wide talent excellence program, incorporating our world-class assessment capability and Leadership Accelerator programs. Finally, we're proud to be a founding partner of the LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games, powering the people who power the games. We're not only building their C-suite, but also helping them design the organization and hiring the nearly 5,000 people who will perform on the world's most inspiring stage. With that, I will turn it over to Bob Rozek. Bob, go ahead.
Great. Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon or good morning. We're very pleased with our third quarter results. This is our fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating YoY fee revenue growth, and we continue to deliver earnings growth, driving strong profitability and free cash flow. Our go-to-market approach continues to be intentional and focused on opportunities where we can build broader relationships with clients by selling larger integrated solutions that support their evolving talent issues. What's really impressive is we are doing this in an environment where business conditions and labor markets remain challenged. It is very clear that our strategy is working, and our results demonstrate that we have built a company that is different from others in the industry. We perform differently because we are different. Turning to overall company results comparing Q3 of FY 2026 to Q3 of FY 2025.
Our consolidated fee revenue grew 7% to $717 million. Again, our fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating YoY growth. Earnings continued to grow in line with fee revenue, and profitability remained strong. Adjusted EBITDA grew $9 million or 7.5% to $123 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.2%, it's up 10 basis points, and adjusted diluted earnings per share grew $0.09 or 8% to $1.28. Total company new business, excluding RPO, grew 11%, with both consulting and digital reaching all-time quarterly highs. RPO delivered $54 million of new business in the quarter, with 78% coming from new logos and 22% from renewals. Estimated remaining fees under existing contracts at the end of the quarter were $1.85 billion.
That's up 11% YoY, we estimate that approximately 60% or about $1.1 billion will be recognized within the next year, with the remaining 40% or about $734 million estimated to be recognized beyond the next four quarters. Finally, our capital allocation during the quarter remained balanced. Through the end of the third quarter, we have returned about $113 million to shareholders through combined share repurchases and dividends, we've invested $64 million back into capital expenditures focused on Talent Suite, productivity tools, and other solution and product enhancements. In a separate announcement last week, our board has approved a 15% increase in our quarterly cash dividend to $0.55 per share. That's our seventh dividend increase in the last six years.
Our cash flow remains strong. We are confident in the outlook for our business. In addition to the detailed results found in our posted earnings presentation, here are a few company-wide and solution-specific highlights for the third quarter. You saw fee revenue growth was very broad-based across all solutions. The interim portion of our PS&I solution grew 4%, continuing to benefit from new business referrals, which were a key factor driving our outperformance in an industry that has been challenged for more than 36 months. Our new business referrals and Marquee Diamond Account Program continue to be contributors of growth enabled by our We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market initiative.
As Gary mentioned, new business referrals accounted for 27.2% of our consolidated fee revenue, and that's up 200 basis points YoY, and the Marquee and Diamond Accounts continued to be strong at 40% of our total fee revenue. Also in the third quarter, subscription and licensed new business grew 30% YoY and accounted for 43% of Digital's total new business. Additionally, in the third quarter, subscription and license fee revenue grew 8%. Finally, our average hourly bill rates for consulting and interim grew by 2% and 15% respectively. Again, demonstrating the high value our clients place on these solutions. Now turning to our regions. Fee revenue in the Americas was up 6%, led by growth in executive search and RPO.
EMEA fee revenue continued to be strong, growing 13% with double-digit growth in executive search, consulting, digital and PS&I. APAC fee revenue declined slightly at 2% with growth in executive search being offset by modest weakness in other solutions. Now turning to our outlook for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Assuming no material negative impact from the recent Middle East conflict and no further changes in worldwide geopolitical conditions, economic conditions, financial markets, and foreign exchange rates, we expect fee revenue in the fourth quarter to range from $730 million-$750 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin to range from 17.1%-17.3%, and our consolidated adjusted diluted earnings per share, as well as our GAAP diluted earnings per share, to range from $1.34-$1.40.
In closing, our financial results over the last five quarters demonstrate that our unique combination of foundational assets, expertise, and capabilities truly matter to our clients. Looking to the future, I'm very excited about our opportunities to drive continued top-line growth. You heard Gary talk about our top 4,500 clients. With the rollout of Talent Suite and our We Are Korn Ferry initiative, we continue to see significant opportunity to expand those relationships in what we call the green space. That is horizontal expansion, where we bring additional solutions to our clients. Vertical expansion, where we leverage our strong C-suite relationships and provide solutions at scale to what we call the vital many, that's down into an organization's professional ranks. We have a great playbook to run from. Our Marquee and Diamond accounts where we have a strong track record of successfully expanding those relationships.
I also see further opportunities in our joint go-to-market activities, particularly between consulting and digital. As I've said many times before on these calls, I am more convinced than ever that our best is yet to come. With that, we would be glad to answer any questions you may have.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question will come from the line of Tobey Sommer with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Markets are certainly reacting to a number of potential outcomes as a result of AI. How do you see AI impacting Korn Ferry?
Well, I think it's going to. At the end of the day, it's gonna allow us to drive more efficiency, as we've done over the last three years, number one. Number two, you know, where we play, we're playing at the high end. You know, the high end of the labor force. I mean, you know, take the United States, there's only, you know, 25,000 companies that have 1,000 employees or more. When I look at the U.S. labor force today of 171 million and really look through the categories of talent.
Korn Ferry, and its clients, are very much at the high end. I don't, I don't really see that high-end labor talent being disintermediated. I believe long term, that it's actually gonna create more opportunity for us, not just in efficiency in how we deliver services, but also, in terms of our client solutions and delivery. I mean, we've got a number of engagements where we're using what we have as proprietary AI-ready leadership assessment tool, and we're using that through the Talent Suite to help companies transform their workforce. You know, I just look at the numbers in the labor force and, you know, over the last 20 years, the U.S. labor force has created, you know, something like $20 million-$25 million jobs.
Over the next 10 years, it's estimated to be five million. Last year, we produced as a country, very, very few jobs. I think you've got this huge imbalance between the demand and supply of labor that either has to get filled through immigration or technology. I would say it's gonna be heavily on technology. For me, it's not, you know, it's not a simple question that AI will take away jobs. It's the people that don't embrace AI, they're gonna be left out. You know, look, this is early days. When we talk to most clients, truthfully, they haven't fully figured out how to use AI to drive efficiency.
When I look at the demographic trends, it's quite clear that companies are gonna have to do more with less. It's, you know, it's mathematics around demographics.
In that context, I wanna just double-click. If we have a higher or an increase in unemployment, do you think the company can grow in that kind of environment that typically used to be characterized or would reflect an economic recession? Maybe it would or maybe it won't in this, if AI goes to the nth degree as some are thinking.
Well, we're trying, you know. I mean, this is my 95th earnings call, quarterly earnings call. You know, many years ago, the company was dependent on one solution, which was executive search. That was directly tied not only to the stock market with a high correlation, but to unemployment and what was happening in the labor force. Today, you've got a much more diversified business, with five different solutions. I think we've demonstrated over the last 36 months, which I consider, a labor recession, that there's quarters that one solution is up and another is down.
The thing that's very interesting is when you look at the executive search solution and you think about the labor market over the last, you know, 36 months, you would have expected based on, you know, historical data going back many years, that the executive search solution would actually be down, when in fact, it's the opposite. I think that tells you part of the story there is around demographics. I mean, clearly it's around the strategy. There's no doubt about that. But it's also reflective of demographics. It's reflected of post COVID life, and it's reflective of boards looking at leadership's teams and saying, "Hey, you know, what got you here isn't gonna get you there." People are making choices about opting out of the labor force.
Because most of those people in the C-suite were leading businesses during COVID. Maybe it's work-life balance. But there is something going on here that's interesting. I look at it and say, our clients, the people that are making decisions around us are truly the outliers of achievement. I just don't... I don't look at it and think, oh my God, you know, out of 171 million people in the labor force, 20 million are in management roles. I just don't see that they're gonna be wiped out here. I, you know, we have not disintermediated humanity.
Thank you very much. If I could ask one more, and I'll get back in the queue. With respect to Talent Suite, do you think that is more likely to have the biggest impact deepening existing relationships, making them stickier somehow? Or is it more about expanding into new customer relationships? I'm sure there's an element of both, but, you know, if you had to choose, which way would you go?
I think it's the former. The thing where there's incredible. We've been working now for 12 months on We Are Korn Ferry. The crux of it, when you look at it, there's 4,500 clients that represent 90% of our revenue. When you look at that client base, what you're gonna find is that, you know, you look at 2/3 of them, and we're only doing 1.5 or two solutions. I look at Talent Suite as not a digital solution play. I look at it as empowering the entire firm. Ultimately, the goal is to try to infuse Korn Ferry's language of talent into companies, how they hire, how they design an organization, how they retain, how they pay, how they develop.
I look at it much broader, but the goal absolutely is a little bit like a Trojan horse to embed the language of client. When it comes to the digital solution in Talent Suite, the reality is we've probably got about, you know, 6,000 clients on Talent Suite, something like that. When you look at that, what you're gonna find is that 70% of them are only using one product within Talent Suite. There's enormous opportunity there. For me, it comes down to having a systematic approach on the go-to-market side and having client service teams that are targeting and servicing the world's biggest companies.
Thank you very much.
Our next question will come from the line of Trevor Romeo with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. Maybe I'll just follow up on the Talent Suite discussion. Does it look like your fees under contract were up double digits for both consulting and digital? I think your subscription and license fee revenue and the new business also accelerated. Would you attribute any of that to, I guess, you know, very early returns from Talent Suite? Is it already having an impact? Or if not, maybe you could speak to what drove that, because it seems like a pretty meaningful acceleration for both of those solutions.
We had a killer, you know, we had a killer couple months in the quarter of new business. Again, the strategy is trying to deepen the relationships, you know, driving client centricity. I would say that Talent Suite had a little impact, but not much. You know, we did a soft launch in November, the harder launch was in January. We converted all of the clients seamlessly. We didn't have any problems. Now we're embarking on a journey to get all of our 2,000 front of the house colleagues to be able to talk to our clients about, you know, what I think our data is beyond compare. I really do. I look at it and say it's kind of Moneyball for business.
We've got 50-plus years of knowing how you separate great from good. I think in an environment of going forward, where companies are gonna have to do more with less, I think this could play a big role in our future. I don't simply look at it as a digital solution play. It's really connected to everything we do. Our RPO solution, executive search solution, professional search solution. It's a foundation for the firm. We've never in the past taken all of our IP and put it in a seamless warehouse where you can go in and do benchmarking on your workforce and all that.
Look, it's early days and, you know, we've rolled out the technology and now it's getting, our front of the house colleagues, on a very targeted basis, to take this to our client base.
Thanks, Gary. That's encouraging. Then maybe one other Talent Suite question. Now that you have it in place, up and running, in addition to your other sort of tech and AI investments, how do you view Korn Ferry's technology spending, I guess in total in the next few years, whether that's CapEx or OpEx? Is the ongoing run rate here, do you think gonna be higher or lower than you may have seen in the past or the same, I guess?
I think Bob can probably address that more. You know, I would just say that when you look back, we've had a fairly balanced approach to capital deployment. In call it the last trailing, you know, 15 months or so, I think the bent has been more towards Talent Suite and CapEx. Obviously, you know, dividend. Look, we just raised the dividend again. I think it's our seventh raise in six years. You know, I think you may see us lean a little bit more heavily in stock buybacks over the next few months. There could be a slight change versus call it, you know, the first nine months of this fiscal year because it was heavily tilted towards technology spend.
I think that's right, Gary. I think Trevor, if you look at our CapEx spend, we're probably around $80 million-$85 million run rate currently, we had anticipated, you know, that coming back down to what you would have seen more historically is say $60 million-$65 million run rate. We'll probably see that drop in going into our fiscal 2027. We're, you know, in the process of doing our planning for next year right now. As Gary indicated, it's one of the things that we look at and think about quite a bit, is how we allocate capital. It, I would say you'll see the CapEx probably drop a bit, but maybe lean more heavily, as Gary indicated, into buybacks.
Certainly when you see the market dislocated like it is today.
Yep. Okay. Thank you both for that. If I could maybe just ask one more, on your, on your interim business. I think you talked about the cross referrals driving outperformance there. Obviously, the, you know, the temp staffing space has been very tough the last several years, as you pointed out. Maybe just what kind of demand trends are you seeing there, independent of your cross referrals? Are you seeing maybe a little pickup in conversations the last few months? Then on the bill rate jumping up to almost $150, anything you'd call out from a mix perspective there?
Yeah. It's the Korn Ferry lift. I mean, we wanna compete there at the very high end of talent because of the questions that have been raised around AI and the like. We wanna be focused on the outliers of achievement. Yes, you know, you look at what I've seen in the industry, people have reported, they saw, you know, a slight uptick sequentially late November, saw that in December, seeing it flow through to January, somewhat flat in February because of the shorter number of days. Yes, that we've seen absolutely that go up. It's up, it was up 4% in the quarter. That's just the interim part of the business. The bill rates have gone up.
You know, the temp penetration rate is still, you know, at historic lows. You know that better than I. You know, I look back over the last 25 years, and generally in the workforce, there's been about, in the U.S., 2.5 million temp workers. Obviously, the penetration rate has been significantly higher than it has today. I don't think that's gonna go away. In fact, you could make the argument that companies are gonna need more flex arrangements to deal with, you know, one-off projects and the, and the like. We're very, very happy with how that solution has done. You know, the opportunity there, quite candidly, is not only the U.S. for us, but Europe.
We made an investment in an interim solution and an executive interim solution in Europe, going back, probably 15, 16 months ago. That has absolutely outperformed. One of the reasons why it's outperformed is because how we have integrated, not only because there's talented people, but we've also been very, very purposeful on a We Are Korn Ferry go-to-market strategy.
All right. Thank you very much.
Our next question will come from the line of George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Alex on for George. Wanted to see if you could provide an update on what you're seeing with sales cycles and how client spending behavior may be differing across segments, and whether there's been any impact from macro sensitivity?
I haven't seen any. You know, the reality is more of the same. I mean, you know, the BLS numbers in the United States were obviously not great. They weren't great because of healthcare. If you just look back over many months, the jobs that have been created were in healthcare or government. You know, I mean, to me, it's more of the same. Now, what I can't comment on is the last 10 days or so, and I don't think anybody can. We have not factored that in to our guidance. 10 days in, you just don't know. I can just tell you the direction of travel for this firm is unbelievable. I've been here with dot-com crisis, long-term credit crisis, great recession, COVID, all of that. Russia, Ukraine.
I can go on and on and on. You know, the changes in China and the extended lockdowns there. I can go on and on and on, but the reality is, when you look at the direction of travel, this firm is outstanding.
Great. Thanks.
Yeah. The other thing I would add to that, too, is if you look at the new business in the third quarter, Gary mentioned we had, a couple of really good months. The thing that I found very interesting, usually October and March are, you know, high water marks for new business, and then December is usually one of the slowest months because of the year-end holidays and so on. We hit an all-time high in new business in October, and we eclipsed that in December this past year. We saw some very large, engagements being signed. In fact, 44% of the consulting new business in the quarter were engagements over half a million dollars. As Gary mentioned before, we're playing top of the house.
People really value what we bring in, and they're struggling to work their way through, you know, the somewhat chaotic world that we live in today. They're only gonna do that through their talent, and that's exactly where we come in.
Yeah. Got it. That's very helpful. I want to ask on the digital side, which saw some improvement sequentially but was flat YoY on a constant currency basis. Can you touch on what drove this and how the pivot toward enterprise-oriented sales is progressing?
Yeah, I mean, that's something we have to do. We have to continue to look at our own talent, and we have to ensure that all 2,000 of our consultants can have a more enterprise-wide conversation for sure. You know, when you look at the digital solution only, you're gonna find that, you know, it's just an increasing percentage is longer term, you know, kind of software as a service deal. I don't sit there and look at simply revenue. I look at the entire firm and what is it doing in terms of our win-loss rate, which we also carefully monitor and study. You know, what is the backlog doing?
You know, I sit there and say, in this environment, you know, am I totally satisfied? No, not satisfied. But we've only been at this, with this IP in a, you know, in a common warehouse for a couple months. I mean, this has not been very long at all.
Makes sense. Thank you.
Our next question will come from the line of Josh Chan with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Gary and Bob. I guess on your-
Hey, Josh.
-consulting side of the business. Hi. This is usually a business that is stronger when the economy is more sure, I guess. Could you just talk to the recent strengths in this consulting new business? You know, what are some of the common threads that you're getting from sort of the, you know, half a million plus engagements that kind of Bob kind of alluded to earlier?
It's around transformation. It's around org strategy and transformation. That would be the big ticket theme for those larger engagements. You know, I read something last night. There was a report that, you know, consulting firms in calendar 2025 grew something like 5% or 5.5%. You know, you have to kind of question that a little bit. You know, I look at our overall firm over the past, you know, call it 12 months, and I'm saying, "Hey, we're, you know, we're in line or better," recognizing that, you know, part of our business deals with the labor markets, which haven't been exactly fantastic.
Hey, Josh. The other thing I would say too is if you look at in the consulting business right now, Gary talked about transformation. A lot of companies are looking at their talent and are they ready to be productive in an AI world, and we have solutions that look at AI-ready leaders, AI-ready talent, and that's where you see the assessment and succession having strong, YoY growth in that quarter as well.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you both. Then maybe a quick question on margin. If Korn Ferry continues to grow at the similar revenue growth rates that you're kind of guiding to, what's the right way to think about kind of margin expansion for the company as a whole kind of going forward?
I mean, you know, in this investment, you know, the investment horizon we have right now. You know, I think what we've said is 16%-18%. Part of it depends on, you know, the M&A execution and, for example, how much, if there's more opportunities, which I think there are, around the interim market and the interim solution. That mix change has a big impact on that question. You know, we also, we also have to make sure that we are making the right investments as a firm, particularly around talent. You know, I think for now that's over this investment horizon, that's reasonable.
You know, you look back, over the last, you know, kind of three years or four years, this is after the great resignation, which probably ended, you know, somewhere late 2022, early mid 2023. The reality is our headcount, per colleague is up almost like 35%. You know, we've got a track record of being able to, you know, to drive client impact the top line, but also be more profitable.
That's right. Yeah, thanks for that follow, Gary. Yeah, congrats on that good result.
Thanks, Josh.
Our next question will come from the line of Mark Marcon with Baird. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. I just wanted to follow up on the last series of questions. Gary, when you're talking about the investment horizon, how long are you thinking in terms of that 16%-18%? I can't help but notice, you know, you're increasing your revenue. If we go through all the charts, it's like the number of consultants on staff has actually been flat to down, most frequently down. I'm trying to think through, like, when you think long term and you think about like, hey, we've got 2,000 front-facing consultants, 9,000 colleagues in total, and we're probably in the early stages in terms of implementing AI. I'm just wondering, like, when you really think about longer term, you know, how efficient can you be?
I know you've got to make some investments in terms of people, but how are you thinking about that longer term?
You know, clients have asked me that question, Mark, as they're looking at their organization. This comment is not specifically to Korn Ferry, and this is clearly an estimate. I think if you were to, say, look out over five-seven years and given the demographic trends that we've talked about on this call and the quote, shrinking labor force, not as many people coming into the labor force, not only in the United States, but other countries as well. Then the promise, you know, then the question is, well, how do you fill that gap? Well, you either do it through immigration or technology.
Given the mathematics, around labor force participation and the promise of AI, what I've told clients is if you look out that kind of five years, median of the bell curve, I would expect your labor force to be smaller by, say, 15% for sure. Now, I'm not talking about every company, every industry, every sector. Just generally speaking, the theme would have to be, as it is for the country of the United States, it would have to be more with less. That's the advice that I've been giving to clients.
Great. I mean, where would you say you are in terms of harnessing AI, in terms of increasing the efficiency? Are you know, is it the first inning? Are we singing the national anthem or are we in the third inning?
Oh, we've taken the field. you know, the reality with all this talk, I think that, you know, many, many, many companies are in the first inning here. There's enough there, where you say, "Okay, I get it, you know. technology can definitely make you more efficient." Then the question is behavioral change. The real question is, you know, people don't change unless there's a reason to change. The question for leadership of companies is how do you create that change? How do you get people to truly embrace the, you know, ever-evolving technology that's out there? That's really the question. I think, look, the reality is, I think most people are in the first inning, Mark.
Okay, great. With regards to Talent Suite, can you talk a little bit about like when you're doing these big deals and you mentioned the aerospace company with 40,000 employees. When you're pricing this and you're pricing it for complete access to Talent Suite, how do you price it? How should we think about that sort of lift?
Size of the company.
In terms of margins and revenue.
Yeah, yeah. Size of company and number, you know, size of company and number of seats. I mean, that's generally how we do it. Is it an existing client of Korn Ferry? You know, what we've seen is that, for example, people will ask the question, CEOs will ask the question, "Is my, is my labor force, quote, AI ready?" Which a lot of that will come down to agility and dealing with ambiguity. You know, what you would do is go in and assess 5,000, 10,000 people. You know, we produce an MRI that would say, "Okay, this is what the thinking style, leadership style of the organization looks like. Based on our research, this is what a future-ready workforce would look like. You know, here's how you stack up.
Here's the gaps and here's a plan towards, here's a plan towards remediation. It also depends too, is what level of consulting, is wrapped around that.
Got it. Then a question for Bob, maybe. With regards to consulting in the third quarter, you had a 5% lift in terms of revenue, but the margins went down by 70 basis points YoY, and the headcount's down. What's the underlying reason for those margins to be down? This is in the context of a great quarter, so just.
Yeah.
Underperformed parts.
Yeah, it is. It is, Mark. One of the things, is our fee revenues were, you know, well above our guidance range. They attract more bonus dollars. We, you know, we had a, an opportunity to get caught up there on the bonus that we provide for folks, and that put a little bit of downward pressure on the, on the margin in the quarter.
Got it. Okay, that's great. Gary, one last one for you if you'll take it, and I know we're only 10 days in. Generally speaking, like, after all of the various things that you've gone through, what's your expectation in terms of, like, how long this would have to continue before, you know, plans would change or that you'd actually see a meaningful difference just in terms of client behavior?
Well, this is just one person's, I mean, one person's view. It's, I don't think anybody really knows the answer to that. I mean, in the United States, you know, transportation and, you know, transportation costs, including gas are 17%-20% of consumer spending. Elevated oil prices are not good for consumer spending, which you're already dealing with a K-shaped economy. You know, there's a cost of living crisis. That's clearly a negative. To what extent have we opened Pandora's box? I'm the least qualified person to answer that question. You know, that's certainly one.
You know, our colleagues in the Middle East, which we have an incredible business, our colleagues are continuing under very difficult circumstances, much like our colleagues in Ukraine have done throughout this time. They're working from home, you know, taking safety precautions. As of last week, it hasn't, you know, materially impacted our delivery of services. I think, you know, you go out, I think it'll be another, you know, 90 days or so, before you really get line of sight on what all this means beyond oil. I mean, beyond oil. What does this really mean?
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
It appears there are no further questions at this time, Mr. Burnison.
Okay. Thank you all for the questions. I'm incredibly proud of this organization and to be a founding partner, which may seem a ways away of LA28, but it's not. You know, I think that will highlight just the power of our organization, for sure. We're excited about that. With that, thank you for your questions, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this conference call will be available for replay for one week, starting today, running through the end of the day, March 16th, 2026, ending at midnight. You may access the echo replay service by dialing 800-770-2030 and entering the access code three two six eight three one five, followed by the pound key. Additionally, the replay will be available for playback at the company's website, www.kornferry.com, in the investor relations section. This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.